100 Themes: PJO Style
by marykate3000
Summary: So I got this off DeviantArt so I hope that you enjoy! I will be using characters from PJO, HOO, and charcters from my own trilogy. I explain it more in the first theme so please, relax and enjoy, take off your shoes and come into the world of my head.
1. Introductions

**100 Themes! So I'm going to do this crazy thing… ON FANFICTION! DUH, DUH, DUH! So I'll be using PJO, HOO, and my own original characters from my trilogy in this 100 theme thing I got off dA. If you want to read my trilogy beware, the first book is a disgrace because it's rated M but the rest are relatively T. Oh yea, Percabeth fans, don't expect much Percabeth because I, myself, am NOT a Percabeth fan.**

**Here are the themes:**

**1. Introduction**

**2. Complicated**

**3. Making History**

**4. Rivalry**

**5. Unbreakable**

**6. Obsession**

**7. Eternity**

**8. Gateway**

**9. Death**

**10. Opportunities**

**11. 33%**

**12. Dead Wrong**

**13. Running Away**

**14. Judgment**

**15. Seeking Solace**

**16. Excuses**

**17. Vengeance**

**18. Love**

**19. Tears**

**20. My Inspiration**

**21. Never Again**

**22. Online**

**23. Failure**

**24. Rebirth**

**25. Breaking Away**

**26. Forever and a Day**

**27. Lost and Found**

**28. Light**

**29. Dark**

**30. Faith**

**31. Colors**

**32. Exploration**

**33. Seeing Red**

**34. Shades of Grey**

**35. Forgotten**

**36. Dreamer**

**37. Mist**

**38. Burning**

**39. Out of Time**

**40. Knowing How**

**41. Fork in the Road**

**42. Start**

**43. Nature's Fury**

**44. At Peace**

**45. Heart Song**

**46. Reflection**

**47. Perfection**

**48. Everyday Magic**

**49. Umbrella**

**50. Party**

**51. Troubling Thoughts**

**52. Stirring of the Wind**

**53. Future**

**54. Health and Healing**

**55. Separation**

**56. Everything For You**

**57. Slow Down**

**58. Heartfelt Apology**

**59. Challenged**

**60. Exhaustion**

**61. Accuracy**

**62. Irregular Orbit**

**63. Cold Embrace**

**64. Frost**

**65. A Moment in Time**

**66. Dangerous Territory**

**67. Boundaries**

**68. Unsettling Revelations**

**69. Shattered**

**70. Bitter Silence**

**71. The True You**

**72. Pretense**

**73. Patience**

**74. Midnight**

**75. Shadows**

**76. Summer Haze**

**77. Memories**

**78. Change in the Weather**

**79. Illogical**

**80. Only Human**

**81. A Place to Belong**

**82. Advantage**

**83. Breakfast**

**84. Echoes**

**85. Falling**

**86. Picking up the Pieces**

**87. Gunshot**

**88. Possession**

**89. Twilight**

**90. Nowhere and Nothing**

**91. Answers**

**92. Innocence**

**93. Simplicity**

**94. Reality**

**95. Acceptance**

**96. Lesson**

**97. Enthusiasm**

**98. Game**

**99. Friendship**

**100. Endings**

**So here I go! Wish me luck!**

* * *

**Theme 1: Introduction**

Life always has introductions. Especially when you're born. Some people's introductions are looked at with bright eyes and some are… well… not so bright. Especially when you were Rosalie Stoll.

It was the middle of the night when her mother's water broke. The mute soon-to-be older brother, Jacob Stoll, whose introduction as well as his twin sister Hailey's introduction wasn't so welcome as well.

You see, the Stoll children were mistakes. The Greek Gods never intended for half-bloods to reproduce, no, never. So they thought it would be a good idea to put a bunch of hormonal teenagers in one camp where they could fall in love with their cousins, or their aunts and uncles and possibly make it much more such as marriage where they would have sex and such.

Much pressure was put onto Travis and Katie Stoll when they learnt that one of their beautiful little girls would become a host of Gaea and would be the downfall of the whole world. But of course, they accidentally reproduced and Katie didn't want to have an abortion so the birth of children commenced.

Tri-Bloods, what Jacob, Hailey, and Rosalie were looked down upon. The only accepted one (which was later killed by his grandmother sentencing him to death) was Alexander Jackson, the son of Percy Jackson and Annabeth Chase-Jackson. The Gods certainly saw greatness in him (by that, Athena refused to let the Gods curse _her_ grandson) and let him go jack free.

But on the other hand, the Stoll children were cursed. The oldest of them, Jacob was cursed with muteness and could only communicate with those who saw through the mist mentally and an insomniac, Hailey was cursed with bi-polar disorder (but later cursed with something much more grave…), and little Rosalie was cursed with one colorblind eye. Much more curses would be thrown their way, much more. But then again, this is an introduction.

"TRAVIS!" she screamed as she clutched the marble countertop of the bathroom's sink while putting a hand on her swelled abdomen. Tears were running down her cheeks because she knew what lied ahead, she knew.

Travis stumbled out of bed. And tried to register what was going on. He made his way out of the bedroom and he saw his small son peak his head out of the door. His eyes wide in wonder. _"Dad, why is Mommy yelling?" _he asked.

He sighed, "I think it's time."

He was about to ask why but Travis hurried away once she screamed for him again. And he was right.

"It's here?" he asked, even though he knew the question.

"YES!" she yelled. "NOW STOP STANDING THERE LIKE AN IDIOT AND TAKE ME TO THE MOTHERFUCKING HOSPITAL!" Katie only screamed liked that when she was moody and pregnant.

He was about to snap back but he saw her bottom lip tremble. "Babe, are you okay?"

"They're gonna curse her, I know it," she said, looking down into the sink. "You were right; I should have done the abortion. Then these kids wouldn't have ever had to live the lives they have to live now."

"Don't say that."

"But it's the truth."

"Come on, we need to go to the hospital."

"What if I just let the baby die?"

"Don't do that."

"But what if?"

"KATIE! We need to go!" he grabbed her by the arm and they made their way to downstairs.

"I don't wanna have this baby!" she whined. It was one of the few times Katie acted like a child and Travis acted like an adult.

"The baby has to come out somehow. In order for a living thing to come out it needs to come out one way or another."

"Travis, I will kick you in the fucking balls when I'm done having this baby!"

Travis smiled his cocky smile as they left the house. "Okay Sweetie."

"I hate you."

* * *

Pain was the only word that came into her head as she pushed. It was less painful than giving birth to twins by far. But still, giving birth was painful.

She wasn't focusing on Travis but he was panicking. What if there were difficulties and he would loose Katie or the baby or _worse_ both of them! He hated how his mind worked because when he really thought about situations (which he rarely did) he would always think about the worse situations and it would all go to shit.

The nurses would ask him every few minutes if he was okay. He would just ignore them and squeeze his wife's hand harder while he jumped in his chair more than he usually does.

He almost jumped for joy when a loud cry filled the room and his wife let go of his hand and she let out a sigh of relief. "Is there another one I didn't know about?" she asks.

The doctor laughs and shakes her head. "No Mrs. Stoll, just one healthy girl."

But then a nurse came up to her and whispered something. Her face fell. "But there's a problem with one of her eyes apparently. In a few days we will see what the baby's eye color is so we can see what the problem is."

"Well, so far nothing serious." Travis exclaimed giving her a smile.

She closed her eyes and nodded, obviously tired. "Maybe she's not the one."

Before they can say anything else a bundle of blankets is being handed to Katie. A pink skinned baby's head poke out of the blankets. "Oh Gods, she's pretty." Katie mutters.

"Like a Rosalie."

"Even before she was born you knew, didn't you?"

"I just know these things Katie." he murmured as he kissed Katie on the forehead.

"I know you don't."

Maybe after all, it was a happy introduction.

* * *

**AWH, fluffy Tratie stuff. Just so you know I made my Katie blonde and green eyed. Now, before you say, OMG, KATIE IS NOT BLONDE! I must make you halt there! Rick Riordan never said what color of hair Katie had or her eyes, for all you know she could have neon pink hair and rainbow eyes! So don't go all drama queen on me and go like: JERjeo;irlhen;flkdjnfo;ildkhn KATIE NOT BLONDE! In future reference, I might need this so just to clear the air.**

**Thank you for reading and I hope you stay for 99 more! **


	2. Complicated

**Theme 2: Complicated**

Drew Tanaka ran into the Aphrodite cabin holding her dress together. Tears were streaming down her face and her makeup was absolutely ruined. But she didn't care, which was surprising for an Aphrodite child. She tore out some clothes from her drawers and ripped out her clothes in anger.

"I fucking hate men!" she growled. "I hate them!"

She was on a date with some nice boy from Long Island when she found herself in a bathroom stall not remembering what had just happened. She sat in the bathroom for a while trying to piece things together. Then she got it and she ran home in tears.

Things like this always happened to her. She tried to be nice, she tried her hardest not to be mean but the world just had to hate her and just rain on her parade. So nobody could really blame her for being a bitch.

She tried to be a good person, really. "Why does this have to happen to me?" she asked, tears streaking down her face. She hated crying. Crying was for the weak. Plus, crying made you look ugly and ruined your makeup and mood. So she often put on a shield and didn't let things get to her. Especially all the crap that was thrown at her. She bit her lip in a last resort to not to cry but a soft cry came out and she plopped down on her bed and held her pillow to her chest and sobbed into that, muting her cries.

Piper McLean was awoken to the sound of muted cries. She stirred out of bed and waited for a minute for her eyes to adjust to the darkness and looked around and saw the blob that was Drew Tanaka wrapped up like a slug in her blanket while hugging her pillow and sobbing.

She would have laughed out loud if she wasn't crying.

'Drew Tanaka?' Piper thought. 'Crying? I thought she was incapable of crying.' Many people at camp joked that Drew Tanaka couldn't cry that she had no tear ducts. But everybody was clearly wrong since Drew was crying right in front of her.

"Drew?" she asked tenderly.

"What do you want twinkle toes?" she snapped, sniffing a little bit.

She wanted to reply with a snarky comment but instead she said, "Are you okay?"

Drew raised her head from her pillow and glared at the other girl she utterly despised. "Why do you want to know?" she hissed. "You don't want anything to do with me, remember?"

"Well you were crying and you never—"

"I'm human, what the hell is wrong with that?" she growled tearing at her pillow but not ripping it. "Everybody cries. Some more than others. Now leave me alone sweetie and pipe it."

"Well, it's clear that you're upset," Piper says. "And when people are upset it's good to just let it all out."

Drew glared at the other girl for quite a long time. "Do I have to talk to you?" she asked.

Piper tried her hardest not to roll her eyes. "Yes, I'm the only one awake."

"Why do you even care?" she asked, not looking at the other girl. "I'm mean. I'm a bitch to you; I'm a bitch to everyone. Why don't you just use this against me and tell everybody in camp? Why don't you just make my life shittier?"

Piper shifted in her sheets and thought about all of the people who would exploit her, which was almost everybody. "Because I'm not going to be one of those people," Piper said kindly. "I mean, everybody has two sides to themselves. Who says you don't?"

Drew narrowed her eyes in suspicion. Growing up the way she did she learnt not to trust people so she wouldn't get hurt. "How do I know that you won't—"

Piper got up and sat next to the older girl. "Pinky promise." she said, sticking out her pinky.

A smirk tugged on Drew's lips. "Pinky promise?" she laughed. "What are we? 1st graders?"

The girl with unkempt hair and uneven braids blushed. "My dad used to do this and I think this would help," she answered. "Now, pinky promise."

Drew rolled her eyes but linked her pinky with the other girl. "Okay, fine, pinky promise."

Piper sat there with her knees to her chest staring at Drew. "Um, what are you looking at?" she asks.

"This is what people usually do; they stare at the person who's talking." Piper said.

"Since when are you an expert in this stuff?" Drew asked.

The girl with messy hair shrugged. "I dunno, they do this in movies."

Drew gave her a look and stayed silent until she said, "It's complicated."

"It can't be that complicated."

"Oh so would you like a rundown of the life of Drew Tanaka? Because I hear her life is pretty complicated."

"There are more complicated lives out there," Piper assured. "I'm sure I can handle yours."

To Drew, that stung like a thousand bees but she had mastered the art of not showing when things made her sad, or mad, or anything like that.

"Well this is just like every other date I've been on." Drew started. "I just get used. Every time I meet some guy I think every time that this date will be different-"

"Maybe you're just looking in the wrong places." Piper suggested, cutting in. Drew raised an eyebrow at her. You see, this is why she hated people. They always were rude, they cut in, she just hated them.

"Maybe Twinkle Toes, maybe." But she didn't go any further. She just closed up and told Piper to go back to sleep in the nastiest of ways.

10 years later she sits in a bar by herself. It's a real drag but she deserves it, she had a hard day at work and later she would return to her little apartment and eat ice cream.

"One martini, on the rocks." she ordered flatly. "No, actually, one shot of vodka."

The bartender nodded and filled one tiny shot glass for her. The bar was filling up but she didn't care. All she wanted to do was get a little tipsy enough so she could just go home and imagine that her life was better than it was now.

A man about her age or a little older sat next to her. He kept staring at her and she wanted to tell him to fuck off but she didn't feel like it. It didn't matter that he looked attractive; she just didn't want to talk to anybody.

"So you come here often?" The man asked trying to spark up a conversation.

Drew gave him a look. "Only on bad days." she answered, shooting him down and leaving him to bleed.

"The name is Steven Lyranski, you?"

Drew sighed but then took the shot of vodka and suddenly things got a little bit looser. 'I guess I can have fun with this'.

"Drew Tanaka." she replied and then asking for another shot as the bartender passed by. "Now you better be interesting sweetie."

"What's a pretty woman like you out here at a scene like this when she's sad?" he asked, acting coy. It somewhat reminded her of the Stoll brothers but then she had to remember that both of them were taken, Travis with Katie and Connor with some mortal bitch.

"Well, isn't booze the answer to everything?" Drew asks, not looking at him, keeping her cool. "And why are you talking? Trying to sound all smart and witty so you can get into my pants?" Leave it to Drew to be blunt about everything.

And that was how she shot him down again. But he would not let down light. "Now, Ms. Tanaka, I'm not trying to get into your pants. Not at all. I'm just trying to hear life stories from all sorts of people and today I chose you."

She raised one groomed eyebrow at him. "Why would you want to hear my story?" she asked. "There are probably plenty of more interesting people in this damn bar, hon."

"Every story is interesting Drew." he replied. "And I have a feeling your story is extraordinary."

"It's complicated."

He smiled at her. "Baby, I'm good with complicated."

This time a smile graced Drew's lips. A real smile, not a sarcastic smile, not a mean smile, not a fake smile, it was real. Nobody had made her smile a real smile for such a long time.

"Oh, so you are."

* * *

**Sorry for such a long delay but I've been handling so many stories and writings and so I just came back to this and started to write! I always loved Drew and I thought that complicated would be her theme. I hope I got her right! And here's a factoid, apparently Drew's official last name is Tanaka and guess what? I made up Drew's last name before Rick Riordan named her Tanaka. So yay! Or I might be mistaken but oh well, my Drew's last name is Tanka. So thank you for reading and see you at the next theme!**


	3. Making History

**Theme #3: Making History**

**Might be OOC, I'm not sure, but if it is then sorry.**

Making history was difficult. I mean there were hundreds, maybe even thousands if she was correct, half-bloods in camp! But ever since she stepped into camp and heard about the greatness some campers have gained. And Annabeth Chase was determined to make history.

So every morning she would make her way to the Big House. She stood in front of Chiron's door until he came out to make his morning tea.

"Annabeth," he would say, greeting her, knowing what she was going to ask.

"When will I make history?" she asks, following the centaur.

"Whatever do you mean young one?" he asks, pouring hot water into the teapot and adding two teabags.

"When will I go on a quest?" Annabeth asked, standing on her tippy toes and grabbing a cookie off the counter to help herself to.

He would always answer. "But Annabeth, not every camper goes on a quest on their time here." he replied.

She stuffed the cookie in her mouth. "But I wanna go on a quest!" she complained with a full mouth.

"Maybe someday Annabeth, maybe someday." Chiron would reply, tired of her constant nagging.

For years this would go on until one day when Annabeth was 10, he finally said something that would stop it.

Like always, she would wait at his door until he came out. They did the usual exchange of words.

"Annabeth."

"When will I make history?"

"Whatever do you mean young one?"

"When will I go on a quest?"

"When the chosen one comes." Chiron replies, mixing the teabags in the water and then letting them soak.

Her big grey eyes went wide. "A chosen one?" she shrieks.

"Yes, a chosen one." Chiron says, smiling, knowing that his plan was working. He knew that a 'chosen one' would come but he just didn't know what the 'chosen one' would do with his stay here (Aka: Percy Jackson). He only had the little details of the 'chose one'.

"When!" Annabeth asked, jumping in place in excitement.

To be extra mysterious, Chrion said, "When the time is right Annabeth," he replied. "You just have to be patient."

Annabeth nodded like she understood and then she walked away, determined to find the 'chosen one' so she could make history.

So every time a new camper would come in she would be the first one to volunteer to watch over this camper. "This one has to be the 'chosen one', I know it!" she would mutter under her breath as she walked to the new and scared looking camper.

She would keep the camper under her wing until she pieced together that the camper in fact wasn't the 'chosen one'. Then she would just ease her way away from the new camper and go to the next new camper in hopes that she would find the 'chosen one' and make history.

The other campers would always make fun of her. "So, Annabeth, have you've found the 'chosen one' yet?" one of the Stoll brothers chided.

She would always glare at them and cross her arms. "No, not yet, but I know that they will come."

"But what if the 'chosen one' doesn't come?" the other Stoll asked. "What if Chiron _lied_ to you?"

"Chrion couldn't have lied!" she would protest, getting angrier and angrier at them. 'No wonder Katie can't stand them!' she would think when they did this. "He always tells the truth!"

"Whatever Chase!" they called after her as she walked away from them. "Good luck finding the nonexistent 'chosen one!'"

She swore to the Gods that she was going to get back at them one day.

Then one day a boy came stumbling into the camp. He said a few words and then fainted. Annabeth volunteered to take care of him, because 1. He was pretty cute and 2. He may be the 'chosen one'.

And it turned out that the drooling boy was the 'chosen one'. They'd go on many quests and end up saving the world together. Annabeth got what she wanted. She made history as well as a boyfriend.

A few days after the war ended she was sitting at the Big House table drinking tea with Chiron before she had to go out and plan out where the new cabins would go. "You've done well Annabeth." he says, taking a sip of tea.

Annabeth nodded. "I guess I did."

"You've made history. You must be proud." he smirks remembering little Annabeth nagging him every morning. Oh how the young grew up so fast.

Annabeth smiled as she set her teacup down. "It was all thanks to you telling me that I would though," Annabeth answered. "So thank you."

"One day I will tell the story of the great Annabeth, who still to this day is making history." Chiron replied.

She got up from the chair and started to walk away. "Well, I need to go make some history, see you later."

Chrion went back to drinking tea as he shook his head in amusement.

* * *

**I've finally figured out something. I don't HATE Annabeth, I just hate her ship with Percy because the raging fans who bully people because they happen to have an opinion on other ships. I used to be a Percabeth fan but seeing all the raging and mean fans I jumped ship! Now, I'm not saying that all Percabethers are mean but there are a lot who get all mean about other ships because in their eyes Percy should only be tied down to Annabeth.**

**Well I say let us ship all the ships we want without bullying others! (I have a feeling that the hardcore Percabethers will kill me now for saying this but oh well.) Thank you for reading! **


	4. Rivalry

**Theme #4: Rivalry**

**Warning, Annabeth might be a little OOC. I apologize.**

Rachel wouldn't it call it a rivalry, but it was clear that Annabeth did. See, Rachel only saw her and Percy as bros, nothing else. I mean, yea, she did have feelings for him but she knew he was taken so she tried to restrain from loving him.

But it was hard not to. He was hot in an awkward teenager kind of sense. Not to mention his gorgeous eyes. Rachel would spend all night painting everything the color of his goddamned eyes. Her father would sometimes step into his daughter's room and see her hugging a paint can to her chest that was the color of that boy's eyes.

But she made one good mistake. She kissed him. And oh god, she regrets that she even did. And it was totally one sided too. And it hurt, it hurt a lot. Because she knew deep in her bones that he didn't love her back. She was just a pushover.

But she didn't have to worry about it now. She was the Oracle. She didn't have to worry about any stupid boys. Sometimes she cursed herself on her decision. She knew that it was for the greater good but she would never look up to her first time with a boy or go on dates with boys anymore. She knew was lucky to take this role but it made her feel like the ultimate loser.

But it didn't stop her from looking at boys. She would look at all sorts of boys walking around the camp with their athletic builds and would have dirty thoughts but never actually do them. But sometimes she caught herself glancing at Percy. And she wasn't the only one who noticed she was staring.

Sometimes she would advert her gaze up and a pair of angry grey eyes were looking right at her, almost at her soul. She let out a little yelp and went back to her sketch book, burying her head in it and was alarmed to who she was drawing.

'Damn it Percy!' she thought angrily, furiously erasing the sketches of the son of Poseidon. 'Why'd you have to be so goddamned gorgeous?' As you can see, she loved to use the word 'goddamn'.

And she was scared of Annabeth's wrath. She and Annabeth were on good terms but she remembered how territorial she was about her loved ones which was a politer way of saying that she didn't want any other bitches to touch her man. Did you see the way she was fuming when she found out that Percy was with Calypso?

After dinner Annabeth caught up with her. "So I saw the way you were looking at my _boyfriend." _she stated coolly trying to make it not obvious that she was mad at Rachel.

She told her heart to stop beating so fast but it wouldn't listen. "My eyes just wandered, that's all," Rachel replied.

"Then your eyes wander quite a lot then because I've caught your eyes on him more than that one time." Annabeth said innocently, turning to her.

'Oh god,' Rachel thought, 'How do I explain this?' She watched Annabeth smile victoriously at Rachel being flustered.

"Well, I thought our little rivalry had ended but I guess it hasn't," Annabeth said. If there was one thing Annabeth was good at, she was good with her words. "We wouldn't want to start this nastiness again, would we? I've begun to really like you."

Rachel swallowed uncomfortably. "Me too and I promise you that I'm not interested in Percy and if I tried to make a move on him he'd be hopelessly clueless!" Rachel said, trying to convince her.

Annabeth didn't look like she really bought it but she sighed. "You're right. I'm sorry that I was so hard on you. Sorry for bothering you." Annabeth said walking away to her boyfriend.

But Rachel wasn't as stupid as Annabeth thought she was. She knew that Annabeth never thought that their so called 'rivalry' wasn't over. It would be there until the last day of the world's existence.

Rivalry wasn't a thing Rachel could escape anymore.

* * *

**This was a short and sweet one (well this wasn't really sweet but oh well). I really couldn't come up with anything else and I didn't want to do the whole Annabeth and Rachel fiasco but nothing seemed to fit except for that and plus I don't want to focus this too much on my characters so Annabeth and Rachel will have to do.**

**And you know how Annabeth gets about her (****bitches)**** I mean men haha. Thank you for reading and review maybe?**


	5. Unbreakable

**Theme 5: Unbreakable**

No boy has ever loved her before. So Laura Croft thought she was unbreakable. But what happened when she loved a boy that didn't love her back?

She met him in the first day of college and she never knew how much he would change her. Before she was pessimistic and a boring hipster. But he made her so much happier than she was before and he got rid of the black hair dye and made her wear her natural hair color, brown. Before she thought that her boring brown hair was stupid and ugly but when he told her he liked it she suddenly thought her hair was beautiful and should be kept that way.

He made little differences in her life, they weren't forced but she went along with it. And now that she looks back, she was glad that she let him.

And as she knew him more her love for him grew. She noticed how troubled he was. But when she asked him what it was he would just smile and say, "Oh, it's nothing."

But she knew it was something. She knew it. But since she loved him she never prodded.

She remembered all the days they spent together on the beach near Long Island. She was a photography major so for most of her projects she would just take pictures of her friends. But she would often lie and say that taking pictures of him was for a project. But in all reality she wanted to capture the moments they had together forever. She'd admit it was creepy but he was just so goddamned beautiful that it was hard not to take a picture.

He would rest his arm on her shoulders and lean in close to see the pictures. He was so close that she could smell him. He just so happened to smell like heaven which to her was the smell of paint and an earthy smell like the smell of fresh soil after the rain. Together it smelt beautiful. His lips would be so close to her face that she was tempted to reach over and kiss them. And when it got dark she would see the lights of the boardwalk reflect in his hazel eyes as they walked around spending the day doing nothing but just daydream.

And on days like that she would forget that he didn't love her back.

But she always had hope in her. He would have bad relationships with other girls, one night stands. Maybe he secretly did love her. Maybe one day she would have her chance. Maybe one day he would love her.

She knew it was cliché to fall in love with your best friend but she was in love with him and his melodious laugh, his sarcastic way of putting things, just everything that was him.

But when reality hit her, it hit her hard.

One day he sat her down and told her about this gorgeous girl he ran into. He apparently knew her from this camp he went to as a child and he seemed so happy. Happier than he was when he was with her. The girl's name was Angie.

'Angie,' she thought. 'What a stupid name.' But the truth was that she was jealous that a girl he just ran into made him that happy. So she stole his phone and started texting this girl trying to convince her that Jacob didn't like her.

But he caught her and wrestled her to the ground and apologized quickly to this girl. She knew she shouldn't hate this girl, she didn't even know her. But she hated her. She hated this girl because Jacob liked her.

Soon this girl and Jacob became a thing and she had to face the truth.

She was breakable. Her heart shattered to pieces as she shook this girl's hand and said how nice it was to meet her.

This Angie girl was beautiful, way more beautiful than her with her blonde curls and her baby blue eyes and her boobs were huge compared to hers. She was a goddess compared to flat chested, unmanageable brown hair, ugly brown eyed 'ol Croft. On the outside she was tough and unbreakable but on the inside she was fragile and soft. When she said she didn't care to her other friends who knew she lied. She did care. And for a while she didn't know why.

And she broke even more when they announced that they were going to get married. When she saw the card in the mail she wanted to burn it. But she replied that she would be coming. She wanted him to be happy and she was going to be here so he could be happy.

And there was nothing in the world that she wanted than for him to be happy.

So she sat there putting on a fake smile as she watched that beautiful girl he was going to marry walk down the aisle. He was standing there with a proud smile looking at his bride. She could see his little sister sitting there looking proud at her brother. It couldn't be a happier day.

But oh god, she wanted to scream and sob for him to not marry this woman. She wanted to confess her love to him but she knew it would do nothing for her. He would still not love her.

She was broken, so utterly broken. She looked up at Caleb, who was the best man. He looked at her with worry and she smiled at him and looked away. He knew the extent of how much she loved Jacob, he knew how broken she was.

And then he was married and at the after party she let herself get as drunk as she wanted so the next day she would forget what happened. All she really remembered was Caleb and Jesse hauling her to her small apartment and Caleb washing her in her bath tub (it's not pervy because Caleb is gay).

When she woke up she was hit with a major headache and the memories of the unity between Jacob and Angie.

"You're awake." Caleb said. "I took the responsibility of staying overnight with you."

"Tell me yesterday was a dream." Laura moaned, burying her head in her pillow.

Caleb rubbed her back while giving her a glass of water. "I'm sorry honey. Yesterday wasn't a dream; Jacob is now officially off the market." he said softly.

Laura sat up on her bed and drank some of the water. She blinked away tears but Caleb spoke up and said, "You can cry now."

"I don't cry!" Croft yelled angrily as tears ran down her cheeks. "I don't cry because I am unbreakable!"

He gave her a look of concern but he didn't have to say anything because then she started to cry. Caleb patted her on the back and muttered soothing things to her. He made a mental note to be lucky that he grew up with two annoying sisters who were over emotional so he knew how to deal with this kind of stuff when women cried. Then he did a silent victory that he was gay so he didn't have to deal with the over emotional hurricane that was a woman.

After she was done with her emotional breakdown they both sat on the bed staring at the ceiling. "I swear if you tell anybody I cried over that dumbass painter I will kill you." she hissed.

"I won't, you're not either of my annoying sisters, you're Croft." he replied.

"And I'll only be Croft in his eyes. Good 'ol Croft who waits around and becomes some pathetic bitch around him!" she growled, throwing her pillow across the room.

"You aren't pathetic…" Caleb replied, trying to make the situation better.

"Let me tell you a story Caleb," she started. "Once upon a time there was a little girl who hated her name. She was unpleasant to look at and all the boys in school thought she was ugly or a lesbian. And so over the years she became tough. She acted like she didn't care what other people thought. For heaven's sake! She became some goddamned hipster that wasn't her at all. She did horrible things to her hair and she came to believe that she was unbreakable.

"But then she ran into a beautiful boy. He was absolutely gorgeous and she fell in love with him the moment she saw him. He was charming, perfect, coy, witty, just everything perfect in her eyes. But the problem was that he was in his own world. Something about him was dark and rigid but he never talked about it. It caused him to never see that she loved him so much that it hurt. And he changed her. He made her see the good in people and herself and he got her to do something about her hair too. But he never saw her affection for him. Then one day the boy met another girl who was a goddess compared to the little girl. She was perfect for him. But the little girl couldn't help but feel used, almost broken. And she didn't understand. She thought she couldn't be broken; after all, she was unbreakable."

Croft closed her eyes and tears ran down her cheeks. "But then he got married and she realized that she was breakable. She had feelings too. It's just that the boy never saw them. He broke her heart but there was something special about this heartbreak was that he didn't mean to break her heart like all the other boys that found out about her affection. And to this day he still doesn't know and she realized, oh god, she wasn't unbreakable."

Laura Croft wasn't unbreakable, and she had to learn it the hard way.

* * *

**I hoped you liked it! Now these are my own characters so if you haven't read my trilogy, it's okay if you're confused. This is onesided Joft (JacobxCroft) because I sorta favored it more but Jangie (JacobxAngie) would make more sense for TGND. **

**Thanks for reading and maybe review?**


	6. Obsession

**Theme 6: Obsession **

**Warning, may be OOC (I'm not good with these characters :P Especially ones I don't really like that much since I'm biased).**

Piper didn't have an obsession! Her half-siblings did! She didn't have an obsession about being all pretty and perfect and fashionable! They did!

But one day Lacy was watching her mess up her hair and she pointed out something timidly.

"Uh, Piper, I'm not saying this as a bad thing…" Lacy started but then trailed off.

"What do you mean?" Piper asked, digging into her drawers for mismatchy clothes. "What bad thing are you talking about?"

"Well… I don't know how to say this…" Lacy said.

"Just tell me!" Piper insisted.

"But you'll get mad!" Lacy argued. For a daughter of Aphrodite, she didn't have the audacity and courage of one.

"Lacy, spit it out or I'll charm speak it out of you!" Piper threatened. Piper rarely used charm speak against anybody at camp but it was a good way to scare people into things you wanted to find out about.

"Fine! Fine!" Lacy piped. "I swear Piper when you use that you're just like Drew except non-Asian!"

Piper rolled her eyes. "Just get onto it Lacy."

"Well… I know you think that we Aphrodite kids are obsessed with our looks but I think you're also obsessed with something…" Lacy trailed off and looked away from Piper and then squeaked it out. "I think you're obsessed with trying to make yourself not look good."

"What?" Piper asked, almost throwing her Hello Kitty tank top in the air. "What? How could you—I'm not obsessed with trying to make myself look ugly!"

"But every day you roll out of bed and spend time on trying to make yourself look, um, mismatchy." Lacy said. Lacy tried not to use the word 'ugly' because it hurt people's feelings and she knew what it was like to be called ugly. It wasn't nice.

She's gone to Brooklyn Academy for the Gifted (BAG for short) for her schooling and the bullies at BAG (including Drew) would call her ugly and it got to her that it got serious and it like totally got to her. She would do what those girls in all those stories did like cut herself and stuff but then Sadie came and she just made her happier for some really weird reason. Plus she got to dance with freaking Carter Kane, the hottie brother of Sadie and that totally boosted her ego and got her back to her feet!

Leave it to Lacy to not see how serious the things she was doing to herself were.

"You spend as much time trying to make yourself look mismatchy like we do to make ourselves look good," Lacy piped, getting her courage brought to her finally to let her say what was on her mind. "And can you please tell Leo to stop trying to hit on me! It's making me uncomfortable! And I have a boyfriend so it feels wrong!" Well, a pretend boyfriend named Carter Kane.

"What? I do not!" Just then Leo was walking pass the Aphrodite cabin (no doubt checking out chicks) when Piper yelled. "HEY! LEO! DO I HAVE AN OBSESSION WITH LOOKING UGLY!"

Leo paused and he looked around. He did not want to be stuck in this situation. 'Just pretend I didn't hear her,' he told himself. 'Act cool.' And that was a problem for him because whenever he tried that he looked panicked. He obviously didn't learn from the masters of 'acting cool', the Stoll brothers.

He strutted away when he bumped into Jason. "Run man!" he hissed.

"BOTH OF YOU COME HERE!" Piper called from the window. She used charmspeak on them and they turned around and marched to the Aphrodite cabin.

"Good, now that you two are here I will ask you a question," she glared at them as if to signal to say no. "Am I obsessed with looking ugly?"

"Well honey, I wouldn't call you ugly…" Jason trailed off avoiding the subject. "I mean you're really pretty and such and…"

"What obsession?" Leo asked, talking really fast and in a high pitch. "Nope! I don't see any obsession here! Welp, I've gotta go and do cabin leader stuff that's really important so—"

"You two are really bad liars!" Piper exclaimed. In the background Lacy was smiling on how right she was. "Say what you have to say!"

"Well… you are a little ob—" Jason started but then Leo cut in.

"YES!" he shouted. "Oh gods, um, don't kill me!"

"I am not!" Piper growled.

"Well, I need to go and stuff so bye!" Jason called, taking Leo by the arm and dragging him away so he wouldn't blubber off anything else that they agreed on about Piper.

"See!" Lacy chimed, smirking. "You are! Even your boyfriend and your friend admit it!"

Piper glared at Lacy but then went back to choosing other things that didn't match. "I am not!"

"Yes you are!"

* * *

**You see kids; that's what happens when you have writers block, you write characters OOC and write shit like this! I am serious people, I have writers block and all I can think of for Obsession is Piper's obsession to look mismatchy. Because she does have an obsession for it, no lie. **

**Plus I really want to get to the theme Forever and a Day so I can write Tratie fluff because I ship Tratie so freaking hard.**

**So thanks for reading and I hope you don't hate me for producing shit like this.**


	7. Eternity

**Theme 7: Eternity**

For Hailey Stoll, waiting a few minutes was like an eternity. It didn't help that she was ADHD either. Plus, she wasn't a very patient person in general. "Mommy, when are you going to be done with your sciency stuff?" Hailey complained, pulling at her mother's sleeve.

"Just in a few minutes Hailey, then we can go to the park." Katie sighed. "Now can you stop tugging at me?"

Hailey pouted and crossed her arms. "But Mommy! You've been doing that _all_ daaay!" she whined. "Why can't you just set that aside for another day?"

"Honey, I have to finish this today," Katie said, looking away from her laptop to her daughter. "It's very important."

_"Yea Hailey, it's important!"_ Jacob chided, sticking out his tongue at her.

"Shut it mutey mouth." Hailey snapped, hitting her brother at the side of her head. "How about you do something important? Like jumping off a cliff!"

"Hailey, don't say that to your brother!" Katie snapped, giving Hailey the famous death glare that shut them up.

_"Yea, Hailey, how about you go jump off a cliff!" _Jacob sneered, earning a punch from his sister.

"And not you either Jacob." Katie told her son. She swore, when those two fought it was like two Travis Stoll's fighting with each other about something stupid like who took the last cupcake or something.

Oh, the consequences of marrying that man and having children with him… Plus all the nagging was getting to her. She had this important lab report to give to other scientists around the world to review and she was worried about being pregnant again since they couldn't have another one, if they did the Gods would find some way to make it messed up. They couldn't bring another one into this world to suffer the wrath of the Gods.

"Are you done yet?" Hailey asked.

_"You can clearly see that she's not done! Did you see how spaced out she was?" _Jacob said.

"Well I thought she was done dummy!" Hailey spat back.

"Let's go then," Katie said out of the blue. "I can work there."

"Yay!" Hailey cheered as she jumped off the couch. "Let's go mutey!"

She dragged her brother out of the door and Katie got up and put her laptop in her laptop case. She eyed over the CVS bag in the corner with a pregnancy test and reminded herself not to be scared and take it.

"Come on Mommy!" Hailey called from the door.

"Coming!" she replied back, putting her keys and cell phone into the bag and running out the door.

They walked to the nearby park and once they were there Hailey ran to it but Jacob stayed behind and stared at his mother. _"Mommy?"_

"Yea Jacob?" she asked. "Why aren't you going with your sister?"

_"Are you okay? You look worried."_ Jacob stated, looking at her with his big eyes.

She feigned a smile. "Yea, Jacob, just go play."

Jacob gave her a worried glance but then hurried away. She swore that boy was her father but in a different form. The boy looked just like him for Pete's sake! Sometimes she thought that her father actually jumped the Isles of the Blest so he could look after her even when she was an adult.

But then she remembered that he was Catholic and half of the time he would just look at her funny when she explained how her life was and how different it was from his even though they lived in the same house.

But he was nice enough to not force religion upon her and let her live her own life.

As she sat down on a nearby bench and took out her laptop she thought about how different her father and Jacob were. Her little boy was snarky and crude at times and her father was almost like a saint.

But she didn't know about her father's past, for all she knew her father could be some of criminal back in Greece and the only reason he left was so he could run from the law.

But they cared about people the same way. When her Dad would get worried his eyes would get big and he would just look at you. Gods, it's been like an eternity since she's last seen her father. If he was here he would have made her life so much easier and he would love the grandkids like Monique liked them. But she knew that her Dad would _hate_ Travis.

He would hate how Travis treated her outside their little bubble. She was used to all his teasing but she knew her Dad would silently swear in dirty, dirty Greek at Travis and ask why she even married him in the first place. He would just be like Miranda. Whenever she calls she starts off the conversation with "Why did you even marry that piece of shit?"

Miranda sure did have a way with words.

She could just picture her father and Travis actually meeting.

Dad: "So… You're the piece of skata (shit in Greek) that's marrying my daughter?"

Her dad could be intimidating sometimes, especially when he didn't like a person. But she wasn't sure how Travis would react, probably confused because he didn't know modern Greek but then piece together that her father called him a 'piece of shit'. Travis would probably say something back and then her Dad would continue speaking in Greek and it would just be horrible.

She almost made a face thinking of her going "But Dad! I love him!" Ugh, she didn't want to pull the Ariel move. She swore, if her daughter ever tried that she would lock her in her room until the end of time. But of course, Hailey would find a way out, that little girl always found ways to get out of things.

She finished the lab report and sent it to other scientists around the world. She yelled at the kids that they were going but instantly regretted it because she had to take that damn test. But she found herself walking home with her children.

Once they got home she told the kids to play in the backyard and she watched them scamper away. Once she heard the door slam shut she stared at the bag. It took her a few minutes of her sitting there in dread for her to take the box out of the bag. She had to slap herself to even walk to the bathroom. Then she had to bully herself into opening the damn box.

She stared at the wrapper that covered the pregnancy test. So instead of unwrapping it she called Miranda.

"Miranda I am freaking out." she said once she picked up.

_"Whoa, whoa, whoa honey, what's the matter?"_ Miranda asked.

"I need you to encourage me to pee on a pregnancy test." Katie blurted out. There was silence over the phone.

_"Did he want to do it when you were out of the pill without a condom?"_ Miranda asked. _"And you didn't say no?"_

"Miranda, I am so stupid. It was the heat of the moment and I couldn't say no." Katie admitted. "I need your worldly encouragement to make me pee on this damn pregnancy test so I can get this over with."

_"Darling, one day I am going to rip the balls off that man." _Miranda growled. _"Okay, Katie, you need to pee on that pregnancy test so you can confirm whether or not I need decapitate any balls off any man."_

"Don't do that!" Katie protested. "Miiirandaaa!"

_"Gods Katie, you're so difficult!"_ Miranda snapped back. _"You need to take that pregnancy test so I WON'T go over and chop off any balls!"_

"I still don't want to!" Katie whined.

_"JUST DO IT!" _Miranda yelled. _"And text me when you get the results, okay! Bye!"_

"Wait! Miranda! Don't go—" but she stopped talking once Miranda hung up.

She looked at the wrapper and took a deep breath and tore it open and took the test out. She built up enough courage and did the test. She had to wait 15 minutes for the test results to occur (she did two just in case). But now she knew how Hailey felt. 15 minutes felt like an eternity. She washed her hand repeatedly trying to pass the time.

She kept glancing over at the test. Whenever she looked it was still blank. If she was pregnant then what was she going to tell Travis? "Oh, hey Travis, guess what? We're going to have another baby! Yippee!"

But the next time she looked over she saw it.

Both of them were positive. The little red plus sign on both of them. She sat on the floor of the bathroom and grasped both of them. She wasn't going to go into denial, she knew she was pregnant. She knew ever since last week that she was, she could feel the subtle changes that were happening. She didn't know why she did but she knew. She was in denial for all that time.

She walked out of the bathroom and texted Miranda 'positive.'

She sat on the couch waiting for him to come home. That would be an eternity until he did. And when he did it would be an eternity until the baby was born.

Sometimes she really did hate eternities.

And when he died in her arms, her life seemed like an eternity without him.

* * *

**UGH, TRATIE FAMILY FEELS. That's what I can only write now because I always have a soft spot for my Tratie family. In retrospect, I should have put this in my Stoll Family One Shots story (if you want more family stuff then go there for one shots) but eternity is the theme and I will keep it true to this story.**

**Oh yea, I got a Twitter and if you want to follow me then the link to my Twitter is at my profile.**

**So thanks for reading and maybe review?**


	8. Gateway

**Theme 8: Gateway**

Gateways were very important to Nico's life. He would list out many others but there was this one time he went to Italy over the summer when he was 25 (well, not really 25 more like 90 something but he didn't count those years where he was in the Lotus Casino) to spend time with his second cousin twice removed that still lived in Italy. He didn't think he'd have anybody related to him that even cared about him but apparently his second cousin twice removed, Andre did.

Andre was a quiet man who lived with his wife, Yolanda, and kids and such and it reminded him how lonely he was. The two children would laugh at his broken Italian and he would roll his eyes.

It felt nice to take a break from the states. Less monsters over there and he didn't have to deal with the drama in the states with all his friends. But his phone rang non-stop (yea, he got a phone, got a problem?) with them checking up on him if he was alive or not.

He was trying to stay away from the life he was forced into my laying low. It was a risky move on his part but he just wanted to as normal as he possibly could. So he didn't take orders from the Gods anymore and didn't really mention his past life and cut off connections (excluding Percy but he hardly talked about his personal life to him and would allow the conversation to be centered around Percy, of course Percy would notice but Nico would act oblivious to it all).

Every day Nico would go to the nearby Venetian styled café but stop at the gates to stare briefly at a girl with bright red hair who was drinking a chai latte with a book in hand. She would pay no mind to him but just keep reading.

He didn't know why he didn't just go up and talk to her. He usually didn't have problems with girls, really he didn't pay mind to them like she paid no mind to him. They just flocked over to him because he was apparently 'dark' and 'handsome'. Gods, he was 25 and he had no idea how he was 'dark' and 'handsome'.

He's had girlfriends in the past but never bothered to get serious. Plus most of them tried to 'fix' him. But they had no idea what made him the way he was and he wasn't going to tell them anytime soon. They were clingy and he chose to dump them.

He was never nervous around them like he was to this total stranger. And he never had 'girl problems' like other guys did (he was sick of Percy calling him every week stressing about something that Annabeth was doing and he yelled back with 'You're the son of a fucking sea god! Figure it out yourself! Do you really think that I would know?') and he refused to call Percy about it because he would never hear the end of it and by the time he went back to the states everybody he knew would know about it.

So instead he went to the two children of his second cousin, Ricardo and Sofia.

"Why don't you just talk to her?" Sofia giggled.

"You're 10 years old, what do you know?" Ricardo yelled at her. "Girls are difficult to talk to!"

"But you talk to me!" Sofia protested. "And I'm a girl!"

"Cause you're my sister you idiot! Plus sometimes you don't seem like a girl!" Ricardo teased.

"Well you're an idiot who stares at girls butts when we go shopping with Mama!" Sofia blurted out. Nico did nothing to stop their fighting because he found it amusing.

"Says the girl who had a crush on Uncle Nico before she found out he was related to us!" Ricardo shouted out.

Nico tried to keep a pokerface but he couldn't help but fake cough to get the laughter out. He normally wasn't a very happy person but for some reason children made him happy. Maybe it reminded him of the better times in his life and they were just so innocent, it reminded him when he was innocent.

She reached over to bite him but then the voice of their mother boomed into the room. "Ricardo! Sofia! Stop fighting!" she barked in Italian. "Now get outside, you've been inside cooped up for so long."

"Buuut Maaa!" the children whined, this time not in English. "We don't want to!"

"It's a command, now go." Yolanda ordered. The kids groaned and headed out the door.

"Nico, come here." Yolanda ordered.

He popped out of the room and compared to Yolanda he was a giant. Yolanda was short and stout woman with brown hair that was usually up in a bun. She worked alongside Andre in running a clothing store that was under their apartment.

She was the closest thing to a mother he had and she sure acted like on around him, always making sure he had everything before he went out of the house and made sure to know where he was. He would say it was annoying but he was secretly thankful for it. He remembered the first time she looked at him with distaste and hoped that her son never became as troubled as Nico. She even said it out loud. She wasn't a woman to keep back her opinions.

He couldn't blame her. Ricardo was a bright boy and he and Nico were polar opposites. He couldn't imagine Ricardo being all gloomy and depressing and wearing black all the time. He would have to smack sense into that boy if he ever tried that.

"So you like some girl." Yolanda said, sitting him down on their faux leather couch.

"What?" Nico sputtered. "Where'd you hear that?"

The middle aged woman rolled her eyes. "You guys weren't exactly quiet in that room of yours. Plus Sofia was singing under her breath: 'Uncle Nico and that girl are going to live happily ever after and I will have little kids I can play with!'" she said in a girly voice that sounded like Sofia's.

Nico mentally smacked himself for going to her for advice. "But Sofia's right, you should just talk to her. It may not be simple but once you say hi to her the rest will come to you." Yolanda answered putting dinner in the oven.

"How do you know?" Nico asked.

She rolled her eyes once again. "I swear you are just like Andre. Because that's what I did to Andre after years of hiding and gushing over him I finally gained the courage and went up to him and said 'hi'. Now look at me now, I'm married to the fool and have two children with him."

Nico just stared at her blankly and she clucked her tongue in distaste. "Fine, don't listen to my advice. Dinner's in an hour don't be late." He also liked her because of how dry and sarcastic she was like him. It was almost like she was supposed to be the one slightly related to him instead of Andre.

The next day he was determined. He walked out of the small apartment ("Where are you going?" Sofia asked.) and had his mind set on one thing. To talk to that girl.

The worse that could happen was that she could slap him across the face and call him something offensive in Italian. He stopped at the gates and suddenly got cold feet. She was there as always, but this time with a laptop and with ear buds.

And he did the most stupid thing that came across his mind; he pulled up a chair and sat at her table. "Hi." he blurted out, rather loudly.

She was taken by surprise and almost choked on her coffee while spilling it all over herself and her laptop.

She swore loudly in Italian and everybody looked up at the scene that was happening.

He panicked and he grabbed a bunch of napkins and started to help. "I'm so sorry; I didn't mean to startle you." Nico said in English but he wasn't so sure if she understood him.

The girl looked annoyed but she said in English. "Ah, it's okay, I was planning to go home after this drink anyway. But my laptop… I don't know about that," she looked up from her fringe that was covering her eyes. "Oh, so you're that cute guy who stares at me every time I'm here."

His brain kind of glazed over. She was looking at him. And she called him 'cute'. Cute as in hot. Oh gods, she called him cute. She thought he was cute. Mission successful.

"Um, hello?" she asked. "You awake?"

"Oh, um, sorry, about your laptop. I can buy you a new one if you want." Nico offered, if only he wasn't so pale because he felt his face growing hot. One of my many downsides of being a child of Hades is that you were as pale as a ghost and that if you blushed people could clearly see it. Then he realized the other part of the sentence where she called him cute. "What? I don't stare at you!" he sputtered out.

She gave him a look. "Yes you do," she stated. "You're not so subtle about it either."

His cheeks became even warmer and he saw her smile. "I- well, sorry?"

"You should really stop apologizing." she said. "Plus you're cute when you're all flustered."

"Oh." Was all he could say. Right now he really wanted to crawl into a hole and die. He wasn't really good at this.

The girl looked at her watch. "Well, I have to go," she announced. They both walked to the gate ignoring the dirty look from the shop owner. Her face brightened as she remembered something. "Oh yea! Before I leave here." she dug out a napkin from her purse and a pen and scribbled something down.

"Here's my number. And if we ever go on a date I'll make sure I don't spill any liquids on myself." she teased as she put the napkin in his hand. "Well, ciao!"

He watched her hurry away and then he looked down at the paper. Her handwriting was neat for a person who was on a hurry. He read her name and for the whole time he was walking home it kept repeating in his head: _'Lia, Lia, Lia, Lia, Lia.' _

His biased opinion thought that her name was the most beautiful name ever.

That was the first important gate in his life.

The second one was the gate they got married at. They had been together for two years before they decided to get married and move to America.

It was a quiet ceremony. They were quiet people so it seemed suitable. He went to Annabeth and Percy's wedding. It was way too fancy for his liking. He never pictured that he would get married. He always pictured himself dead because he didn't expect himself to live for so long.

Over those two years he had to tell her about his past life and what he was. She stared at him weirdly before asking. "With that shadow traveling of yours, you can go anywhere in the world?"

He nodded; worried that she would leave him because he'd heard stories from the other campers about their mortal boyfriend or girlfriend leaving them because of what they were. He didn't want to lose her. He was too close to her and he didn't want to go through heartbreak and sadness all over again.

Her eyes brightened and she asked, "I always wanted to see America." she said fondly. "New York really…"

"That means you're not dumping me?" he asked brightly.

"No. Where'd you get that idea?" she asked, smiling warmly. "I still have to wrap my head around this whole 'son of Hades' thing and how old you actually are and I'm not sure how to feel about it but it would be really cool if we could go to New York in an instant."

"Well, let's go then." he said grabbing her by the waist. That's how they've decided to move to New York in an instant.

They've decided to get married at their house. It had a garden out back and she liked to garden so that was it. Plus they were just really lazy and didn't want to seek out a venue. Andre and his family came over and her parents came over (she was an only child).

They held hands at the gate of their garden and the vows where made, the rings were given, and then bam, there were married, as simple as that.

He had this habit of not telling people things about his personal life and it was only when he ran into Percy at the supermarket did Percy find out that he had gotten married.

"I didn't even know that you had a girlfriend!" Percy exclaimed making a scene. He and Annabeth's son, Alex stared at his father weirdly while sucking his thumb as if saying 'Dad, stop it, you're making a fool of yourself.'

"I had one," Nico started, picking up a carton of eggs. "But now I don't."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Percy exclaimed. "Did you tell anybody else?"

"Because I didn't think it was any of your concern and I'm pretty used to not tell people things. And no, I didn't, don't you feel special?" Nico said sarcastically. Percy was the closest thing to a brother to Nico but he didn't get how Annabeth could live with the cluelessness that was Percy much less have a child with him that could potentially become as clueless as his father.

"What does she look like?" Percy asked.

Nico paused and decided what he should say. "Red hair. Redder than Rachel's and hazel eyes. No freckles. Short, 5'4" Her name is Lia."

"Will I ever meet her?" Percy asks.

Nico looks at Percy. "I don't know. I'm trying to keep my space from the Greek world to keep myself and her safe. Who knows what could happen if we meet."

Percy looked gravely at the younger man and sighed. "Yea, I get that man. But don't be a stranger, come around and visit."

Nico didn't look at Percy as he lied through his teeth. "Yea, I will."

The third important gateway in Nico's life was the gateway leading up to his house. Every day he would walk through that gateway and five children had been brought home from the hospital through this gateway.

Gods, even at his old age he couldn't believe that they had FIVE children.

He wanted all of them to not look like him but sadly his genes were more dominant than hers. Only one of their kids had red hair, Lydia. He remembered when she told him she was pregnant with their first baby.

He just stared at her blankly while saying. "What? A baby? I'm going to be a horrible father!"

"Well what do you want to do then?" Lia asked, exasperated.

"I don't know!"

But don't worry, they kept all five. He didn't quite understand the term 'bundle of joy' until his first child's cries filled the hospital room and the black haired boy was brought into Lia's arms. They didn't think of any names (because they were that prepared…) so Lia suggested Nico Jr. He didn't have any other good ideas so he agreed.

Then came Lydia, the second child a year after Junior (that's what they called him so they wouldn't get so confused on who was who). Her hair gave him hope that there were going to be many more red haired children but when Bianca came she had the same black hair as his. So did Nick and Catalina.

It was hard to raise kids when you were a son of Hades. When they had nightmares he couldn't usually comfort them since he radiates fear and death. But he usually directed darkness away from them when he comforted them.

"Daddy?" Bianca asked one night when she crawled into he and Lia's bed one night. "Why do you have this tattoo on your arm?"

"Because I was part of this Roman Legion camp." Nico answered tiredly.

"I want to get tattoos when I'm older." Bianca said.

"You are not going to get any tattoos Bianca," Lia piped from her side of the bed.

When Bianca moved out of the house and then came to visit one summer she had a sleeve of tattoos trailing up her left arm.

"I will scrape that skin off your daughter's arm one day," Lia growled.

It was hard sending their children off. Especially the first one. Junior decided to leave right when he finished high school. It was out of surprise because Nick came running down the stairs to his parents telling them that Junior was stuffing everything in a duffle bag and leaving.

"What are you doing?" Lia demanded, slamming the door open of their oldest son's room.

"I'm leaving this hell hole!" Junior snapped back, pushing his mother aside and heading out the door.

"Don't talk like that to your mother," Nico growled, helping his wife back up. "You don't treat her like that!"

"You know what, I'm sick of you two having control over my life!" Junior snapped back. "All you've been doing is dragging me down. Do you know what? I'm glad I'm leaving."

Junior started to be taken by the shadows and an angry look was still on his face. "Don't you dare shadow travel!" Nico ordered.

"Too late old man."

Then Nico the II was gone.

The other children got out of their room. "What just happened?" Lydia asked.

"Junior left." Nick told her.

"Dad, Mom, Is he coming back?" Bianca asked.

He looked at Lia and she looked like she was going to fall apart. "I don't know." Nico told them. It made him realize that Junior was just like him. He would have hated to raise himself because his younger self was more difficult than Junior.

After a year Junior came back with some red haired girl named Rebecca. They claimed that they were going to get married and that there was already a bun in the oven. Lia gave him the cold shoulder the whole time and Bianca had to call Lydia who was off in college to tell her that Nico came back.

He personally thought that the whole marriage thing was ridiculous but they claimed that they were so in love that it was meant to be.

But after 10 children they had together throughout the years they were married he bought it.

It was really difficult when he had to see his little girls married. Especially the last one.

"Daddy, I'll be fine!" Catalina said, reassuring him before the wedding. "Me and Tim had been together for 3 years. He's not going to murder me in his sleep!"

"I swear if that man does anything bad to you I will murder him in his sleep." Nico growled under his breath.

"Whoa Ghost King, I would kill him before you killed him,"Cata teased.

And when he walked his youngest daughter to her new Husband, Nico couldn't help but give the man the evil eye. Tim looked scared shitless and Nico quietly laughed to himself, glad that he radiated fear and death at a point like this.

But then once Catalina let go of his arm and went to Tim's he felt a lump in his throat as he sat back down with Lia, who was wiping her eyes with a handkerchief.

All of their children were there as well as grandchildren. Heather, Nico the III, Andrea, and Brendon belonged to Junior (soon Brigit, Anna-Marie, Micah, Maria, Percy, and Gianfranco would come along in the years to come), Kaitlin and Sam belonged to Lydia (Oliva was on the way, Wyatt and Penny would come sooner or later), and Brett who belonged to Bianca (Quinn and Aaron would pop into the picture).

And in a few moments of Nico's life, his last child was married off.

His old age got to him and by the time he was 85 (and his children stopped trying to have kids.). Nick would have Henry, Lily, Megan, and Sean; Catalina would have Opal, Geoff, Hannah, Tomas, Grace, and Liam. In total Nico and Lia would have 28 grandchildren. (But if he included Ricardo's and Sofia's children he would have 32.)

Almost all of them had the signature Di Angelo black hair except for the minority that had red, blonde, or light brown hair or a mixture of those hair colors with black.

But Lia didn't get to live to see all 28 of them. She died at 78 due to heart failure. He thought it was cruel irony. Nico being who he was, a half-blood and such he wasn't expected to live past his 20's. Every day he feared that he wouldn't come home to see his family. But his mortal wife died before he did.

When she died she promised him that she would be waiting for she would be waiting for him at the gates.

That led to the fourth important gateway.

At the age of 96 he found himself on a hospital bed waiting for death. He sent his family away so they could get rest. The sun was rising but all too brightly in his eyes.

Suddenly he saw the Lia from the café standing there with her hand extending to him. "Come on, Ghost King, let's go!" he heard her say.

He reached out his wrinkled hand into her fair smooth one. Suddenly he was that younger Nico once his hand touched hers and he followed her into the light as the Fates followed them into the light.

Like she promised, Lia was waiting at the golden gateway of Elysium, smiling.

* * *

**AW, emotions! Now before any of you go rage on me for pairing Nico with somebody other than some girl in the PJO world let me say that this is MY ship. It doesn't have to be your ship but I wanted to write about my OC, Anna-Marie's grandparent's and such and I had no good idea for 'Gateway' until this came into mind. I'm sorry if Nico seems OOC!**

**Anyway, thanks for reading!**


	9. Death

**Theme 9: Death**

Even as a little boy Vincent always faced death. Ever since Desiree had gotten cancer she had been the center of everybody's attention and he was left in the corner desperately trying to get attention.

Little boys need attention after all. They would often bring him to that hospital but leave him in the waiting room with a nurse because they were busy doing adult things and talking about Desiree.

And when he got home it was the same thing. Daddy was mental but Mommy refused to believe it. So they fought over it and Daddy wanted to get a divorce because he said he was dangerous and that he was going to harm him and Desiree when his condition had gotten worse.

But Mommy didn't let him. In his opinion he thought that everybody in his house was mental.

One day he got sick of it and walked out of bed and downstairs to where they were fighting. They were too preoccupied with fighting that they didn't notice him walking out of the door and sitting on curb waiting for somebody to kidnap him.

He'd always hear about stories about children getting kidnapped for being outside alone so one of these days he'd have to be kidnapped and maybe murdered and he wouldn't have to face what would come later in his life because he just knew his life would be filled with grief.

It wasn't until some weird British lady popped in that they finally noticed that he was sitting on the curb every night waiting for somebody to kidnap him.

His mother dragged him inside and she waited for Daddy to come inside. She sat him on a chair and he watched her pace back a forth.

"Max, what were you thinking?" Mommy exclaimed, taking him by the shoulders.

He glared at her but didn't say anything. Daddy looked tired and he got down to Vincent's eye to eye level and said, "Why would you do that? Why would you go out in the middle of the night? It's dangerous Max."

Vincent' didn't answer him either. For the next few days he remained silent, not talking to anybody and secretly hating that British lady who ruined his plans.

Over the next few days Mommy and Daddy would try to talk to him but he wouldn't answer back. He was mad at them. He was mad at the universe for making him Vincent Stoll.

And when he grew older and Daddy became worse. He talked to himself all the time while clutching his head as if he was in pain. He'd been drinking more and smelt of vodka and he yelled at the air for supposedly talking and would yell, "SHUT THE FUCK UP!"

Mommy still denied it but it was hard to see her point. He would lock himself in his office more and sometimes wouldn't come out until the next morning.

Vincent would usually be the only person in the house with him since he did nothing after school and he would be scared. Daddy wasn't like himself anymore. No more laughter from him or smiles. He liked Daddy before all of this happened but now he wasn't so sure.

When Daddy was out of his studio Vincent would take a look in and see papers thrown around the room and canvases ripped to shreds and splatters of blood and paint. There were times Daddy would look blankly into space for hours and when he snapped back he would just seem numb.

One day he watched Desiree look scared when she came back from school and she ran upstairs. Daddy was crying which was unusual, he never seen Daddy cry before so he didn't know what to do.

Daddy had a gun and Vincent looked at it in shock.

Dad cocked the barrel back and he laughed bitterly as he got up and walked to his studio. Vincent watched in fear but didn't move from where he was. His mother came home and called for Dad but Dad wouldn't answer.

Max tried to speak up and tell her that Daddy was in his studio with a gun but she ran right past him and up the stairs.

After a few minutes Vincent tip toed his way to the studio. His little heart was beating so fast that it felt like it was choking him and his breathing was frantic. He knew something was wrong but he didn't know what it was.

Max's little hand reached for the big door knob and he gave it a good turn and opened the door.

At the same time a loud bang rang in Max's ears and blood splattered on his face. He closed his eyes from the blood splattering but when he opened them he stood there in shock.

His Daddy's head had two holes in it. One going from one side to another. Daddy's eyes were wide open and staring right at him. You almost couldn't even notice that they were dead looking because nowadays that's what his eyes looked like, dead.

"Daddy?" Vincent asked in a timid voice. "Daddy?" Max didn't cry like a normal child though. He was still in shock from what he had just witnessed. Written on a large canvas were the words Vincent dreaded to this day: **THE VOICES TOLD ME TO DO IT.**

He felt Dessie's hands around his shoulders but he heard nothing of what she said.

Mommy pushed past the two siblings and started to scream something he didn't quite hear and then he felt his face press against Dessie's chest as he was pulled in for a hug. He would have said something but he didn't say a thing.

The rest of the night was a blur but when he was getting ready for sleep he waited for Mommy to come into his room to tuck him in.

He waited all night for her but she never came.

It wasn't until the morning he woke up he cried silently to himself so nobody would hear him.

At breakfast Mommy wouldn't even look at him. For weeks she wouldn't until she became concerned about him because he wouldn't speak. Words could not be expressed. He stayed completely silent for weeks.

One time he caught Mommy talking to somebody on the phone while drinking a glass of wine. "If only Max had stopped him before he pulled the trigger," he heard her say. "Maybe Jacob wouldn't be gone."

No one had ever seen him cry and he kept that to himself but he couldn't help but think about how Mommy didn't love him anymore.

For the rest of his stolen childhood he would never be tucked in again but it didn't matter to him anymore. Nothing did.

As he grew older to the teenager he was he become quieter. His mother stopped becoming concerned about him and left him to be. He tried his hardest to regain her love but sometimes he thought it was all in vain.

Even when she married Seth he pretended to be happier for her even though he didn't really like Seth. Seth didn't really like him either and they didn't pay any attention to each other.

He had become numb but any of his emotion would come out in instruments. Nobody knew about his talents though, not even his sister until she found out on her own. He was a genius when it came to music. He didn't consider himself a genius though, his music saved him.

But there were times suicidal thoughts came into his head and it was hard to shake them off. Sometimes he would stand on the edge of buildings and wondered if he should jump or not or stare at knifes and consider walking downstairs to the kitchen in the middle of the night and stab himself over and over again until he died or to go into the medicine cabinet and take every single pill in there all at once to see what would happen or buy some rope from the local hardware store and just hang himself or to fill the bathtub to the brim with water and let himself drown in it.

But he would always shake himself from it. Plus his sister was worse. She was cutting, smoking, sleeping around just to try to get the grief out of her system.

Sometimes he would think angrily, 'It always revolves around Desiree, doesn't it? Never me. Maybe I should die, they wouldn't even notice.'

When he was betrayed and attacked by chimera's and was bleeding to death he thought 'How nice it would be to just end it all here?'

But even in the face of death he managed to survive. It was like he was destined for it all.

But then he met her. She told him that Dad was sorry, she saved him from dying. She was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen in his entire life and fell in love instantly.

She was the beacon of light guiding him. But she would never notice it until they were older.

Her name was Anna-Marie Di Angelo but if you called her Anna-Marie or Marie she would kill you. Just like if you called Max 'Vincent' his given name. She was always there for him to talk and he was always there for her.

His life was going uphill until the bombs came.

Death surrounded all around him as he received phone calls from the people he loved. His cousin Andrew and his aunts were dying, his sister disappeared out of the blue yet again, and he waited outside his mother's workplace for her to come out safely.

But once she was taken out he held her as she told him, "I'm sorry I was a horrible mother."

He tells her, "You weren't."

She smiles at him. "Just like your father." And then she's gone.

Death surrounds Vincent like a cloud of dust. No wonder he attracted a person who is the granddaughter of the Ghost King.

As he sits in the corner of the sterile room he is tortured in he counts the days until death comes his way.

And so far, it doesn't

He smiles to himself. Death is a cruel son of a bitch. For one, they didn't let him die when he so desperately wanted to.

But he still had many, many years to go until it was time to step into the arms of death.

Many, many years.

* * *

**This one is quite angsty. But I feel like I don't write enough Vincent and that he doesn't get enough love. So Vincent is from the third book in the trilogy and his childhood was pretty rough but he never really complained about it but there had to be inner trauma in his head so I wrote this. It doesn't matter if you don't know what this means, it doesn't have to make sense.**

**I'm sorry if this is going to be a majority of my OC's but they just give me inspiration and connect with a lot of things that I write about.**

**Anyway, thanks for reading!**


	10. Opportunities

**Theme 10: Opportunities**

He had so many opportunities to run away from this place and never look back. He could hardly call himself a Roman Legionary. He felt like a poser.

It all started when his parents died a few days after he was taken away from the hospital. He was only eight years old when he lost them. Taken away from his eyes as he woke up from his sleep to find their dead bodies lay on the floor of their small apartment.

They had given up so much for him so he could live a normal life and get better from his cancer that nobody was supposed to have. They had to move all the way to the east coast away from their big house in Malibu to this tiny shoe box apartment in New York City.

His mom and dad had to give up their dream jobs and work two jobs just to pay the hospital bills and every night after the chemo he would lay awake in bed thinking of apologies he would give.

But he never got to give those apologies and soon he found himself in front of this foster home center where he would be staying until he got fostered or something like that. He didn't think it would be that bad until a few years of him being passed around with young couples thinking about having a baby or a gay couple thinking about getting their own kid or infertile couples testing him out. He was just a test subject. They didn't actually love him like they tried to make him believe, he was just a play thing.

'Why must this happen to me?!' he thought. 'Out of all Roman tri-bloods why does it have to be me?!'

So he hardened due to all of this shit and being a Roman Legionary. Each family he went to he shut them out from his world. He didn't accept their care and care for himself as if he was the only one living in that house.

He could say he almost felt numb but something was always making him feel. He didn't run into her an awful lot but when he did something inside of him stirred.

Her name was Desiree. Yes. Desiree Stoll. She was a Broadway star who just happened to have cancer the same time he had cancer and lived in the same hospital he lived in. He called her Broadway and she glared at him and snapped back with a witty retort.

She always seemed so tired when he ran into her. There were no bags under her eyes or blood shot eyes but her voice just seemed so tired and the depth in her eyes shown how tired she was of life and that she just needed to get away from it all.

He was good at reading people because it turns out that was what she was trying to do.

They were both troubled people. Her father committed suicide when she was just eight; a year after she got out of the hospital and their family was distant. Except she was world famous and smiled for tabloids and he was just some kid from the west coast moved east.

He was gifted, after all there's a reason why he became a Roman Legionary at the age of seven. But he never let it flow. He could easily escape from their grasp but he could never bring up the courage to leave the orphanage where he would keep coming back to after each time they decided not to keep him.

He had so many opportunities to leave the place. There were times he had a room to himself through his time at the orphanage. His room would be close to the ground so it wouldn't be a far fall if he had just climbed out of the window. But yet as he sat on the worn out bed glaring at the window he couldn't bring himself to do it.

Then one day opportunity struck. It was when he was being driven back to the orphanage. They didn't want him anymore. It wasn't a surprise since this has been happening all his life up to this point but something in him flickered. Something deep within his gut and he couldn't control it like he always did when he was in that familiar black car that he rode in every month or so.

He was mad. Real mad. He deserved better! He deserved to storm back into that house and spout out what he has wanted to say for so long to all of his foster parents. Yes, that was a beautiful thought, running into the house of all of his past foster parents and spouting out words of hate towards them.

He deserved to be loved! He deserved to have his old life back without the medicine that he had to take or the monthly check ups to the doctor to see if his goddamned cancer came back to bite. He was fed up with all of this.

Once the car stopped in front of that old orphanage he grabbed his duffle bag from the car and stormed the other way.

He ignored their yells for him to come back and flicked the middle finger towards their direction. He was done with this. No more people pretending to love him. No more of being passed around from household to household.

He walked miles away from the orphanage never looking back to see if they were following him.

He was 17 years old when he finally had the guts to leave that hell hole. The fire in his gut had ceased little by little but as he was crossing a street a silver car roared his way and he looked up from the ground and let out a yell as he reached out his hand to stop it.

"HEY, WATCH WHERE YOU'RE GOING!" Emmet screamed as his head shot up. He felt the car jolt from the force he gave it. His eyes went wide in disbelief. It was Broadway. She got out of the car and stared back in equal disbelief.

"Emmet?" she shrieked.

"Broadway?" Emmet replied. He gave her a twisted look. "Where you trying to run me over?!"

She sighed and ran her finger through her impeccable curly hair. Well, he thought it was perfect, he lived with this woman and she often complained about how unmanageable her hair was. Gods, women.

"Um, no, I was distracted." she paused but then confessed. "I'm running away from home. Where are you going?"

He explained to her that he was doing the same thing. Her eyes lit up and suddenly a tip of a sword was against his throat and she barked, "Get into the car."

"Is this a kidnapping?" he asked but she gave him a look and he shrugged and got into the passenger's seat.

He learnt some things about her such as that she was a horrible driver. She almost crashed into a telephone pole but he grabbed onto the wheel and offered to drive instead of her worrying that he might die due to her driving.

So then they agreed to run away to Chicago together. He didn't know how it came up but after all these years his life was turned around. For once he was happy. Living on the road wasn't ideal but he enjoyed it because he had great people surrounding him (he never thought he would like to be friends with the theatre freaks but he was dating one) and he had her and she had him.

They had grown older and soon moved into a condo of their own. He wanted to marry her so bad. He had the permission from her brother and the ring; all he had to do was pop the question.

He had so many opportunities but when he finally did they had guns in their faces and her leg was bleeding from a bullet wound.

She said yes but he knew that they weren't going to get married anytime soon.

And when he was brought into a sterile white room with a glass window with her on the other side tied to a chair he looked at her sadly. He tried to say something but they punch him in the gut and he refrained from saying it. They stood him up but then kicked his knees and he was forced to kneel.

He felt the cold tip of the gun pressed against his temple and he opened his mouth yet again to say something to her but then he was gone and his Broadway was left screaming in horror.

He had so many opportunities to say he loved her but then it was taken away from his grasp as well as his life.

He broke her heart and that was the last thing he wanted to do.

* * *

**Hey guys! Long time no write! So this is about my OC Emmet Lopez and I just love him because he's my baby. I feel like he doesn't get enough love so this whole theme was for him! **

**I'm soooo sorry that this has been OC central it's just that when I'm trying to think of something for the original PJO and HOO characters my OC's just pop and and say, "Hey, this theme would be fabulous if it had MEEEEE!" I swear, all of them are attention whores and when I try to think of something else that doesn't involve them nothing helps because I have this great idea and I go with the OC's and feed their attention whore ways. **

**So thanks for reading and I hope you're not bored with my OC's.**


	11. 33 Percent

**Theme 11: 33%**

Travis Stoll sat smugly at his desk with his feet resting on it as his teacher passed out the grades for the mid-terms. He already knew his grade. He was a smart kid but he just didn't like to use all his time and energy in using his smartness for academic reasons and would rather use it for pulling pranks or something of that caliber such as being an awesome BAMF.

His middle aged history teacher, Mrs. Ruben, yanked his feet off the desk and slammed the test on the flat surface. She gave him a glare and whispered. "See me after class, Stoll."

He looked up nonchalantly and smirked his famous smirk. "Whatever you say Sweetheart." She gave him an irritable look and it only made him smile even more. He was a devious child from the day he was out of the womb and he loved to mess with people, especially authority figures and freaking Katie Gardner because she was cute when she was pissed off.

His twin gave him a glance from across the room and smiled and he returned the smile. He flipped over his test and in bright red and circled a bunch of times was a big fat 33%. That grade would have all the smartass Athena kids fainting in shock and disgrace with their scrolls and books tumbling with them.

The bell rung and he took his sweet time walking 10 feet from his desk to hers. Her arms were crossed and she looked disappointed. "Mr. Stoll, do you really think that failing and being a miscreant will get you anywhere in life?" she asked.

Travis shifted from one foot to another, but still not breaking eye contact to intimidate her. "I always find ways Mrs. Ruben." he answered back. "I am quite crafty."

She gave him a look and removed her glasses and rubbed her temples. "Honestly Travis, I know that you're trying to mess with me but I'm concerned with your future," she sighed. "A 33% is not a passing grade, it's an F! And it will get you nowhere. This is being put on your record and this is not giving you a good chance for you to even get into a college. I know your record isn't flawless with all the detentions you have but you might as well get decent grades! Do you even think about this?!"

Travis rolled his eyes. He was sick of people being concerned about him. He was going to be _fine_. He was so used to people not caring about what he did that when people actually cared he just felt wrong. "What are you? My mother?" Travis snapped back, showing a bit of his annoyance.

"And think about how much money you're wasting of your mother's!" Mrs. Ruben pointed out. Oh great, the mother card.

Every time he or his brother messed with an older woman they always said, "What would your mother say about your behavior young man!?" or some shit like that. His mother was too busy being a fashion icon for the whole entire world to say anything about him and his brother's behavior. He had a chip on the shoulder towards his mother but his younger brother; even though Connor's four minutes apart from Travis, was more naïve than him and still had the love for their mother the same way he did when they were little.

"She has plenty of money from where that comes from," Travis remarked coldly, his 'I don't care what you think about me' mask now breaking. But it was still convincing that he didn't really care about anything. "She's a freaking fashion icon, she gets the big bucks." Mrs. Ruben opened her mouth to bring up his father but he cut her off. "And I have no dad so you can't play the dad card either Sweetheart."

"You will get nowhere in life Travis Stoll," she said. "I have lost faith."

"Fine lady, if you want me to freaking take the test again then I will," he snapped back.

She gave him a look but then handed him a test and he swiped it from her hands and he quickly scribbled on all the answers to the 41 question test. After 10 minutes he handed it back to her and wordlessly stormed out of the room.

His younger brother was leaning against the hallway wall and jerked up once his older brother came out of the room. "That took long; I thought you would tick her off in less than three minutes!" Connor said.

"That woman is a bitch," Travis mumbled under his breath. "Why can't the old hag mind her own business?"

"She tried to pry into your life like some kind of physiatrist?" Connor asked, his brows furrowing. Connor had the same mindset as his brother; he didn't like it when people tried to care for him. But his attitude toward people who did that was softer than the brash attitude Travis had.

Travis stopped at his locker and shoved things in it and out of it into his backpack. "Yea, whatever, let's go do something dangerous." Travis announced.

Connor lit up and smiled. "Yes!"

Ten years later Travis Stoll was standing on the roof of a building with his partner in crime (well, not in crime, they actually worked for the government but crime sounded cooler), Agent John Lee. He adjusted his black tie (he hated ties but had to wear it) and looked at his partner. "The signal is two fingers." he told him.

Travis was going to a fancy party in upstate New York where he would befriend a councilman from North Korea and try to get something out of him later. He was good with small talk and people opened up to him easily if he got them drunk enough. He would later put a roofie in the drink after he got all the information he needed.

Lee adjusted his belt which had a full artillery of grenades and smoke bombs. A gun was attached to the belt and sitting on the roof there was a sniper rifle just in case he had to shoot somebody trying to stop Travis' get away after he was done with getting answers out of the councilman.

Lee was more of the silent type and didn't talk unless he had something to say. That was why John was the rooftop kind of guy that had the patience to wait for hours in the rain and Travis was the actor who got things out of people by befriending or seducing them.

Lee nodded. "You know, there was this one teacher who said I would get nowhere in life with a 33%." Travis said.

Lee looked up with a raised eyebrow and a small smile came across his face. "But look where you are now."

Travis smiled. "Proved that bitch wrong."

Lee rolled his eyes and positioned himself in front of the sniper. "Now go Stoll and do your thing."

"Whatever Lee."

When 15 year old Travis had his test given back to him the next day it was a 92%. He rolled his eyes at it and ripped it in half and ignored the smile that was on Mrs. Ruben's face.

Personally, he liked the number 33 better.

* * *

**Did this make sense? Maybe, I'm kinda scatterbrained right now. I always pictured Travis and John (he is called Lee by all of his peers) working together but he's never mentioned in any of my stories because it isn't in Travis' point of view, it's in his children's and he isn't allowed to tell his family about what he does for a living.**

**Anyway, this doesn't really make sense and I'm sorry about it.**


	12. Dead Wrong

**Theme 12: Dead Wrong**

Percy and Nico were running down the streets of New York City with a wild herd of Chimeras ganging behind them. They were going out drinking since Nico was leaving for Italy the next day to live there.

When Percy found out he didn't approve of this. "But you'll be safer here!" Percy complained.

"You just want me here when you have relationship problems," Nico said with a roll of his eyes. "which I don't get since I am not a relationship guru. You'd have better luck asking Leo, who claims he's a ladies man."

"That's not all!" Percy said, trying to cover his case. "You're like a little brother to me!"

"It'll be safer there," Nico said. "I have family there I want to connect with. I have to go."

So to celebrate his parting they decided to get smoldering drunk the day before. They went to this nearby bar near Percy and Annabeth's house and sat at the bar looking at the crowd of people.

"You know, you should really get one of those girls number's," Percy muttered to Nico. "After all, they're looking you up and down like you're a five star meal."

Nico looked up at the girls but couldn't see it. "What do you mean? They're looking right past me." Nico said with a look.

Percy smiled amused. "You're even more oblivious than me, dude." he laughed to himself. "They are looking at you."

Nico looked back at the crowd and made eye contact with a Latina girl who gave him a sexy smirk and winked. Nico blushed and she turned to her friends and they exploded into fits of giggles.

He quickly looked away and said, "Anyway, if they were looking at me they're probably not my type."

"Who cares?" Percy said. "Get laid or something!"

"A one night stand?" Nico scoffed, taking a swig of his beer. He wasn't sure if he could morally do that.

"Yeah grandpa!" Percy said, patting Nico on the back. "I swear your brain is still in the 40's. It's okay to have one."

"I'll make notice to tell Annabeth you said that." Nico threatened.

Percy was about to say something back but screams suddenly filled bar as a herd of angry chimeras burst through the building. Both men dropped their drinks and the mortals ran for their lives, making it utter chaos.

Percy and Nico didn't respond to the chaos because chaos basically followed them around everywhere and they learned to ignore it all.

Out of instinct they grabbed their swords and unsheathed them. "You go right, I'll go left!" Percy yelled. "We need to try to distract them!"

Nico nodded and he parted from Percy, running out of the hole in the wall. "HEY! COME HERE KITTIES!" he yelled, trying to get their attention. That failed so he resorted to raising a skeleton solider from the dead and making it run around.

A group of them turned around and another group turned to Percy doing his water tricks and they started to run towards him. He gulped and sent more skeleton soldiers to some finish some of them off so he wouldn't have to deal with all of them at once.

He slashed at a couple of heads and some of them fell off, some of them didn't. He started to run faster until he bumped into the son of a sea god.

"Five bucks I'll finish them off first!" Nico dared, swiveling around and sending a piece of asphalt towards a gaggle of them and catapulting.

Percy raised his eyebrows but smiled. "Sure, but you won't be needing those five bucks anyway!" He sent a jet of water and knocked some chimeras off their feet. They were knocked over like bowling pins and some of them became confused and started to claw at each other, leading them to kill each other.

Percy's smirked and looked over to Nico but the smirk was wiped off his face when he saw that a majority of Nico's group of chimeras were dead and only a few were left.

Percy groaned but focused as he ran over and started to slash at them went on a tangent of stabbing and slashing. After 30 minutes of endless slashing and stabbing he finished off the last one of his group. Percy turned around in triumph. "Did I win?!" he called out. But his smile was gone when he saw Nico wrestling with a chimera.

He ran over to Nico and dove towards the chimera with Riptide out and ready. He aimed for the heart and started to stab profusely. Once it was dead he turned around and Nico was still on the ground.

"Man, I thought I was going to die!" Nico exclaimed. "I guess I was wrong about that."

Suddenly, Percy blurted out, "Or you could say you were _dead_ wrong!"

Nico went silent and stared at the other man. "What?"

"You know, since you almost died and you're a son of Hades and—"

"Percy," Nico said, getting up. "Just shut up."

"You still owe me five bucks!" Percy yelled , running towards the other man.

* * *

**Whoa, it's been a long time since I've updated but I seriously didn't have anything in mind when I came to this. Anyways, thanks for reading.**


	13. Running Away

**Theme 13: Running Away**

She finds herself at an office party with a glass of wine in her hands searching for ways to be less awkward. She thinks about her only daughter and if she would be alright staying at Miranda's house for the night and then her mind drifts to her dead daughter and her throat feels like somebody is strangling her and she takes a big gulp of the wine in her hand.

'Gods, Katie, you need to stop thinking,' she thinks, which is a problem for her since it's her job to think. But whenever she thinks her mind drifts to her broken son, or her little Rosie, or her first little girl, or him.

'Don't you dare think about him!' she orders herself. 'Goddamn it Katie, if you think about him I will—'

But her thought process is broken down when a voice interrupts her. "Excuse me," she hears a male voice say. She looks up and a man with greying brown hair and kind brown eyes is standing there with a wine glass in his hands. "Are you here with anybody?"

She fumbles with her words, "I, um, ah, no. M-my lab partner couldn't make it tonight for this party so I came here alone." She tucks her blonde hair past her ears and tries to hide her blush under this low lighting.

He laughs and smiles, "No I didn't mean like that," he said. "You know, like a date."

Katie laughs nervously and says, "No." She looks around and notices that most of the scientists here are married or dating other scientists. She was one of the exceptions. He wasn't a scientist; he worked for the government as some kind of thing that he wasn't supposed to talk about so he could keep their family safe.

"Ah, so you're one of the exceptions?" he asks. "I was too. My wife was an artist who didn't get my studies so we split since she couldn't take it that I paid attention to other things than her. You?"

"Oh," she says, realizing that she'll have to tell him about her personal life, which was in shambles. "I was married to a guy who worked for the government."

"Did you guys split?" the man asks.

She shook her head. "He died." she blurts out. But then she covers her mouth because she can't believe she said that.

The man just stands there awkwardly and looks away, "Oh."

They stand there awkwardly and she has the urge to pull of her phone and check if she has a missing call from Jacob's school. Ever since the war, he's been different. No mother wants to say that their son has gone mental, but the signs are clear. Every time he comes home he goes to the tree in the backyard where he and his twin used to hang out he would sit there and talk to it as if she was there. He doesn't talk to anybody at home anymore and just locks himself in his room drawing furiously (she knows that since she convinced Rosie to picklock his lock). There are times when she's waking up in the middle of the night to crying. She would sneak out of bed and he would be curled up in a ball crying his eyes out. At school he's been getting into more fights and being violent the way that she would expect a soldier to be violent. He broke a kid's arm because he claimed that the kid was looking at him funny. Whenever he comes home she swears that she can smell the aroma of tobacco on his clothes. She's had to convince the principal of the school so many times not to expel him.

The sad part is that she can't get him any help because of the world they live in where they have to keep their second lives confidential. Jacob fought in a war where he killed people; he can't explain it without getting in trouble. Katie tries to talk to her son about it but he always gets enraged and starts to throw things and tell her that it's none of her business. She can't cope with the fact that a part of her son died with his twin sister and her husband.

Katie knows that her daughter, Rosie has succumbed to the hardships of war. But she denies that there's anything wrong with her and continues to be the same person she was before. But she can tell that sense of innocence her daughter once had is gone. She isn't shocked by everyday things that normal people should be shocked with such as car crashes, death, violence, or anything like that. Rosie is gone too. Perhaps Katie's gone too.

She comes back to reality and smiles up at the man. "I'm so sorry; I don't usually blurt that out loud."

He laughs, "No, no, it's alright. It's good to be honest with people." he pauses and looks out into the crowds of other scientists who are probably talking about science related things and their studies. "I don't believe I introduced myself, I'm Dr. Neil James and I research ways to convert the excess carbon dioxide into renewable energy that benefits the earth. Or just call me Neil; I would prefer Neil since everybody in this room is a doctor."

She smiles at his humor but doesn't laugh. 'Am I flirting?' she asks herself. 'No, Katie, you're not.' She lies to herself.

"Dr. Katherine Gardner," she replies, deciding to go with her maiden name since she doesn't want to be reminded of him. "I am researching a cure for STDs. But you can just call me Katie if you want."

They go on and talk about their professions and lives as alcohol fills them both up to the brim. She can't remember the last time she's gotten this drunk. But soon she finds herself pinned against a wall with his hands roaming and exploring her body as his lips attack her neck. Her mind is too clouded over to do anything rational like she should be doing.

He told her earlier in the night that he had just recently split with his wife and that he loved her and didn't want to get one. He begged and pleaded with her, he even said he'd give up his passion for her but she turned down all of his offers and said that it was for the best.

She told him vague details about the death of her husband that would make sense to the mortal ear. "Murder," she told him. "My husband was murdered." And in a way, he was murdered. He was taken away from her by the Gods and left all alone.

She reached over to Neil and laid a sloppy kiss on his lips. "Your place or mine?" she asked huskily in the heat of the moment.

"I dunno," he said, grabbing for her ass. "You decide."

So she made the stupid decision of saying, "Let's go to mine."

Soon she finds herself fumbling with her keys as he feels her up. She realizes that she hasn't been this excited in a long time. But she soon forgets about him as her keys finally go into the hole and she swings open the door and pulls the other doctor inside.

They race up the stairs and run to the master bedroom. She notices that he stops and stares at the bedrooms of children. "Kids?" he asks.

"Gone." she replies quickly, anxious to get into that bedroom and rip off his shirt. "We can scream all we want."

"Good." he says.

Then it happens. She tears at his clothes and he shoves her onto the bed and yanks off hers. She loves the thrill of it. It's like the thrill of running away from home; it makes her giddy inside like a teenager.

If she wasn't so drunk she would be thinking about the thrills he gave her when he was alive. How he would make her feel complete and needy. But she doesn't focus on him. She focuses on Neil as her hands rake his chest. It isn't as defined as his, it's actually a pretty skinny built, but she's fine with that as she drags him onto the bed and commences to run away from reality just for the night.

Her eyes flutter open and light hits her face and suddenly the bees of pain fill her head and decide to buzz around. They're pretty stupid too since they can't find the exit. Hangovers, she hates them. The bed feels warmer than usual like it was when he was alive. She turns over and expects to see his flawless face there peacefully sleeping but nearly falls out of the bed when she sees some strange man in her bed, supposedly naked.

She lifts the covers up and almost yelps in surprise. She too, is naked. "Oh gods," she asks herself, rubbing her temples trying to ignore the two wedding bands that used to belong to her and him on the bedside table. "What the hell happened last night?" She slips out of the bed quietly like a cat trying not to wake up her partner.

As she puts on a thin bathrobe memories of the events of last night flood into her mind and she almost falls over in distress. How could she do that? Katie's still not over the mourning process and there she goes running around bringing a guy home and sleeping with him. Katie runs downstairs and goes into the kitchen with her toothbrush and toothpaste, getting herself a glass of water and forcing herself to drink it. Her mouth tastes horrible and she knows why. She quickly brushes her teeth as shame washes over her and she feels like curling in a ball and crying.

The doorbell rings and she swears but runs to the door and swings it open like a mad woman. There her daughter is there with her overnight bag and Geoff, Miranda's husband. "We're here to drop of Rosie!" he says with a cheery smile.

Katie smiles nervously. "Geoff could you possibly keep her for a bit longer I—" but before she could finish her sentence she sees Rosie's eyes get wide and Katie runs around and an half naked man clad in boxers is at the foot of the stairs, his eyes wide too.

"Mom, who is—" Rosie begins to ask but Geoff leans down and tells her to get back into the car. Rosie gives Geoff a look but walks back to the car.

"Geoff…" Katie says, nervously.

"Call me when he's gone." Geoff replies. "Won't tell Miranda, she'll freak."

Katie nods wordlessly and he leaves and she watches him back out of the driveway. She turns around and pulls the robe tighter around her. "Who was that?" Neil asks, sounding slightly angry as if she's his wife.

"A family friend," she replies curtly, crossing her arms.

"Oh," he says. "Hey, about yesterday…"

"Yes?" she asks, still disgraced about it.

"You're very beautiful," he murmurs, getting closer to her. Out of fear, she backs away. "All of you."

"No." she hisses. "No, I am not going to do this."

"What do you mean?" he asks, sounding confused like a child.

"We can't do this to ourselves," she replies. "Get dressed."

"Why?" he asks.

"My husband just died and you got a divorce and you still love the woman still," Katie said, running up the stairs with him following behind. "I can't do this to myself and you can't either."

"We can start over!" he pleads.

"Start over?" she asks. "We've only known each other for one night!" She picks up his clothes and shoves them in his hands.

She tries not to look at him but she knows that he's hurt. She's never thought she would be the one who would ever break somebody's heart; that was the job of her husband, who broke her heart multiple times.

"Can't we just talk about it?" he pleads.

"No," she says. "It's better if we don't."

"Katie—"

"No!" she screams, pushing him away. "No! I will not do this! I can't do this to him." She feels herself shaking and she wants to falling into familiar arms that held her when she cried that are now gone.

"Katie, are you—"

"Just leave!" she orders, pointing out the door. "Leave!"

"Will there be a next time?" Neil says hopefully.

She glares at him; she just really wants him to leave. "Never."

He quickly dressed and she followed him to the door so she could make sure that he left her doorstep and to wherever he lived. From her door she watches him back out of the driveway and she thinks about how careless they were and actually decided to drive a car home.

She walks her way back upstairs with her phone in her hand. She dialed Geoff and told him to come back. She paced around in the hallway until she heard the doorbell ring and went down the stairs to go get the door.

She thanked Geoff and Rosie went inside and sat on the couch. "Mom, who was that?" she asked.

Katie bit her lip and shook her head. "It was nobody sweetie."

"Did you have sex with him?" Rosie asks, somewhat innocently.

Katie sees no point in lying and she nods gravely.

"You're not doing this to replace Dad, are you?" Rosie asks, worried.

Katie feels tears welt up in her eyes but she blinks them away. "No," she says. "Of course not sweetie. Nobody could replace him."

She knew that Rosie didn't want Katie to find anybody else. She gave all men dirty looks when they passed by them when they were out together as if she was going to kill them if they ever stepped close to her. But she didn't have to worry, Katie wasn't looking.

Rosie looks like she doesn't really believe her. Katie sighs and rubs her temples. The day has only started and it's been a shit storm. Thank the gods it's Saturday. "Hey, let's not talk about it right now. Let's go make breakfast." she says, pulling on her best smile. "I'm going to go changed."

She walks up the stairs trying to forget the events that had happened earlier and instead she thinks about the stairs and how her little boy would occasionally fall down the stairs preoccupied. She thinks about all the first aid she had to perform on him and she misses it dearly.

'Stop thinking!' she scolds herself. As she opens the door the smell of last night's events waft into her nose and she almost wants to throw up. Without thinking, she starts to tear off all the sheets on the bed in a flurry and suddenly she finds herself running downstairs and into the basement to get her husband's supply of gasoline and matches. For once, she's happy that her husband was a crazy pyromaniac. She would always bug him about it and he would say if the zombie apocalypse happened then they can use that fuel to burn the zombies down.

"For one," Katie would say as they lay in bed together. "The zombie apocalypse will never happen. And two, wouldn't it be just more useful if we used that fuel to I don't know, maybe run our car?"

He would stare at her for a long time and then say, "You clearly don't think these things through."

She hauls the tubs of gasoline up the stairs and sits them in the living room. "What are you doing Mom?" she hears Rosie ask but she doesn't respond as she runs upstairs and throws on clothes and grabs the clothes from last night and the sheets downstairs.

"Mom, are we going anywhere?" Rosie asked, getting up from the couch.

"Let's run away for a while, shall we?" Katie replied quickly, grabbing the car keys and two of the tubs. "Be a dear and grab the sheets and matches for me."

Rosie stares at her mother but grabs the sheets and matches and follows her mother out of the door. Once they throw everything in the trunk they jump into the car and drive. "Can we get breakfast after this?" Rosie asked, her hands tracing designs onto the match box.

"Of course."

"Where are we going by the way?" Rosie asked.

Katie shrugged. "I don't know."

"You're starting to sound like Dad." Rosie remarks; sitting back in her chair. "Should I tell Jacob about this?"

"No." Katie said. "He would just get mad at me; finding out that I slept with another man."

Rosie nods silently and Katie knows that Rosie is mad at her too. "At least tell me you guys were drunk."

"We were."

"That makes me forgive you a little bit more."

They drove in silence for a few hours and then they came to the perfect place. "We're here." Katie announced. Rosie woke up with a start and looked at the land around them.

"It's just an empty field." Rosie said. "Why?"

Katie didn't answer as she got out of the car and took out the sheets and a tub of gasoline. Rosie got out of the car and got the other one and followed her mother out into the field, curiosity following her. Katie threw the sheets on the ground and started to unscrew the cap from the tub of gasoline. Once taken off, she picked up the red container and splashed clear liquid onto the sheets, making them wet.

Rosie didn't ask any more questions and watched as her mother emptied the first tub and then emptied the other. She handed her mother the matches and she told her to stand back so she shuffled a few feet away as her mother struck the match on the side a few times. The stick lit up with crimson flames and then disappeared into the sheets where it burst into flames.

She yelped in surprise but her mother's face stayed emotionless as embers lit up in their eyes.

"Mom?" Katie heard her daughter ask. "Are you okay?"

Suddenly the world came crashing down upon her like the reality of a child who had gotten over the romantics of running away and her lips quivered and she started to cry. She stopped standing and hugged her knees and she started screaming and sobbing hysterically. She wanted to be strong for her kids, she wanted to. But she broke, she broke hard.

"I'm so sorry Travis!" she screamed. "Oh gods, I'm sorry!"

She felt arms pull her in an embrace and she couldn't help but sob louder in this desolate field.

* * *

**Ahaha, I love making crying Katie Gardner. I am a horrible person. So I'm sorry that this whole thing has been OC centric but when I write these that's all that comes to mind. So thanks for reading! **


End file.
